3,000+ Zimbabwean students have graduated from the University of Fort Hare, says Mugabe

More than 3 000 Zimbabwean students have graduated from the University of Fort Hare since 1995, President Robert Mugabe said during its centenary celebrations on Friday.

He said he had decided to make education a priority when he became president of Zimbabwe in 1987, he said. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the university in 1951.  

"I decided on two things, that every child has a right to education and that our education naturally must not be basic. It must be also be tertiary."

He said, through his scholarships, more than 6 000 Zimbabwean students had graduated from South African universities. Between 1995 and 2016, more than 3 900 of the country's students completed university studies in South Africa, 3 010 of them at Fort Hare.

This number had decreased because Zimbabwe had built 14 universities of its own, he added.

"There is a special education here which motivates a student. It's African-ness, the history ‎that it tells of the formation of the ANC and the making, therefore, of the African nation," he said.

Mugabe congratulated the institution for having been in existence for 100 years.

Students were protesting outside the sports complex where the celebrations were taking place, to demand food, transport and accommodation allowances.

Police took one woman in for questioning after students looted a food tent.